Four Different Types of Writing Styles: Expository, Descriptive, Persuasive, and Narrative<br />INTRODUCTION <br />A writer’s style is a reflection of his or her personality, unique voice, and way of approaching the audience and readers. However, every piece writers write is for a specific purpose—for example, writers may want to explain how something works or persuade people to agree with their point of view. While there are as many writer's styles as there are writers, there are only four general purposes that lead someone to write a piece, and these are known as the four styles, or types, of writing. Knowing all four different types and their usages is important for any writer.<br />Here are the categories and their definitions:<br />1. Expository<br />Expository writing explains or informs. It talks about a subject without giving opinions.<br />Expository writing's main purpose is to explain. It is a subject-oriented writing style, in which authors focus on telling you about a given topic or subject without voicing their personal opinions. These types of essays or articles furnish you with relevant facts and figures but do not include their opinions. This is one of the most common types of writing. You always see it in textbooks and how-to articles. The author just tells you about a given subject, such as how to do something.<br />Example:<br />Many people associate the taste of pumpkins with fall. In October, companies from Starbucks to McDonalds roll out their pumpkin-flavored lattes and desserts. Here is how to make an easy pumpkin pie using only five ingredients. First, make sure you have all of the ingredients.<br />This writing is expository because it is explaining. In this case, you can already tell that the piece will be about how to make a pumpkin pie.<br />2. Descriptive<br /><br />Descriptive writing focuses on communicating the details of a character, event, or place. Descriptive writing's main purpose is to describe. It is a style of writing that focuses on describing a character, an event, or a place in great detail. It can be poetic when the author takes the time to be very specific in his or her descriptions.<br />Example:<br />In good descriptive writing, the author will not just say: “The vampire killed his lover.”<br />He or she will change the sentence, focusing on more details and descriptions, like: “The bloody, red-eyed vampire, sunk his rust-colored teeth into the soft skin of his lover and ended her life."<br />Example:<br />The iPhone 6 is unexpectedly light. While size of its screen is bigger than those of the iPhones that came before, it is thinner, and its smooth, rounded body is made of aluminum, stainless steel, and glass. The casing comes in a whitish silver, gold, or a color the company calls “space gray,” the color of the lead of a pencil, with darker gray accents. This is an example because it describes aspects of the phone. It includes details such as the size, weight, and material.<br />3. Persuasive<br />Persuasive writing tries to bring other people around to your point of view. | Source<br />Persuasive writing's main purpose is to convince. Unlike expository writing, persuasive writing contains the opinions and biases of the author. To convince others to agree with the author's point of view, persuasive writing contains justifications and reasons. It is often used in letters of complaint, advertisements or commercials, affiliate marketing pitches, cover letters, and newspaper opinion and editorial pieces.<br />Example:<br />Following the 2012 Olympic Games hosted in London, the UK Trade and Investment department reported a £9.9 billion boost to the economy. Although it is expensive to host the Olympics, if done right, they can provide real jobs and economic growth. This city should consider placing a bid to host the Olympics. This is persuasive writing because the author has a belief—that “this city should consider placing a bid to host the Olympics”—and is trying to convince others to agree.<br />4. Narrative<br /><br />A narrative tells a story. There will usually be characters and dialogue. Narrative writing's main purpose is to tell a story. The author will create different characters and tell you what happens to them (sometimes the author writes from the point of view of one of the characters—this is known as first person narration). Novels, short stories, novellas, poetry, and biographies can all fall in the narrative writing style. Simply, narrative writing answers the question: “What happened then?”<br />Example:<br />“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Jaelyn. “You never used to be such a girl!” retorted Orin, pushing open the door. Reluctantly, Jaelyn followed. This is a narrative because it’s telling a story. There are different characters conversing, and a plot is unravelling.<br />CONCLUSION<br /> These are the four different types of writing that are generally used. There are many sub-types of writing that may fall in any of those categories. A writer must know all these styles in order to identify the purpose of his or her own writing and make sure it's something the audience wants to read. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />